During the
Partition of India
The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...
,
violence against women
Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed against women or girls, usually by men or boys. Such violence is often consi ...
was an extensive situation.
It is estimated that during the partition between 75,000
and 100,000 women were kidnapped and raped.
The rape of women by males during this period is well documented,
[ with women also being complicit in these attacks.]
Systematic violence against women started in March 1947 in Rawalpindi district where Sikh women were targeted by Muslim mobs. Violence was also perpetrated on an organized basis, with Pathans taking Hindu and Sikh women from refugee trains while one accused that he witnessed armed Sikhs periodically dragging Muslim women. It has been estimated that specifically in the Punjab, the number of abducted Muslim women was double the number of abducted Hindu and Sikh women, because of the actions of coordinated Sikh ''jatha
A Jatha ( Punjabi: ਜੱਥਾ g ਜਥੇ l) is an armed body of Sikhs. They have existed in Sikh tradition since the beginning of the Khalsa (Sikh community) in 1699 CE. A Jatha basically means a group of people.
The Damdami Taksal Jatha
...
s''[Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf (24 September 2012)]
A Concise History of Modern India.
p 226, Cambridge University Press. . who were aided and armed by Sikh rulers of the 16 semi-autonomous princely states in Punjab which overlapped the expected partition border, and had been preparing to oust the Muslims from East Punjab in case of a partition.
India and Pakistan later worked to repatriate the abducted women. Muslim women were to be sent to Pakistan and Hindu and Sikh women to India.
Background
During partition Punjabi society was affected at all levels by murder, displacement and assault. Rival communities targeted women to humiliate them and actions against women included rape, abduction and forcible conversions. Violence against women also occurred in Jammu and Kashmir and the Rajputana
Rājputana, meaning "Land of the Rajputs", was a region in the Indian subcontinent that included mainly the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan, as well as parts of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and some adjoining areas of Sindh in modern-day ...
states.
Violence
In contrast to earlier riots, women were victimised in the direct action day riots in Calcutta. Many Hindu women were kidnapped during the Noakhali violence. Anti-women violence occurred during the 1946 massacres of Muslims in Bihar. Thousands were kidnapped just in Patna district. Muslim women in Bihar committed suicide by jumping into wells. In November 1946, Muslim women were subjected to stripping, nude processions and rape by Hindu mobs in the town of Garhmukteshwar. In Amritsar, Sikhs paraded naked Muslim women, who were then publicly raped before being set fire to in the street.[PDF](_blank)
Systematic violence against women started in March 1947 in Rawalpindi district where Sikh women were targeted by Muslim mobs. Numerous Hindu and Sikh villages were wiped out. Huge numbers of Hindus and Sikhs were killed, forcibly converted, children were kidnapped and women were abducted and raped publicly. The official figure of death in Rawalpindi stood at 2,263. Before further attacks many Sikh women committed suicide by jumping in water well
A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. Th ...
s to save honour and avoid conversion.
Sikh political leaders had considered plans for the eventual expulsion of Muslims from East Punjab in case of a partition leading up to the event. Tara Singh, a member of Shiromani Akali Dal
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) (translation: ''Supreme Akali Party'') is a centre-right sikh-centric state political party in Punjab, India. The party is the second-oldest in India, after Congress, being founded in 1920. Although there are many ...
and principle SIkh leader during the partition said “We took the decision to turn the Muslims out" years before the event. Intending to oust the Muslims in East Punjab to provide lands for the incoming Sikh population from West Punjab. Several districts in Punjab, including Patiala
Patiala () is a city in southeastern Punjab, India, Punjab, northwestern India. It is the fourth largest city in the state and is the administrative capital of Patiala district. Patiala is located around the ''Qila Mubarak, Patiala, Qila Mubarak ...
, Faridkot and Nabha
Nabha is a city and municipal council in the Patiala district in the south-west of the Indian state of Punjab. It was the capital of the former Nabha State. Nabha is also a sub-division city which comes under Patiala district.
Geography
Nabha ...
were governed by Sikh leaders and reported to have been arming and providing safe haven for Sikh marauding groups in anticipation of partition.
Violence was also perpetrated on an organized basis, with local men taking Hindu and Sikh women from refugee trains while one observer witnessed armed Sikhs periodically dragging Muslim women from their refugee column and killing any men who resisted, while the military sepoy
''Sepoy'' () was the Persian-derived designation originally given to a professional Indian infantryman, traditionally armed with a musket, in the armies of the Mughal Empire.
In the 18th century, the French East India Company and its oth ...
s guarding the columns did nothing.
Both Sikh and Muslim communities also cited revenge as a reason for their attacks. The scholar Andrew Major notes that the large-scale abduction and rape of girls seemed to have been a part of systematic 'ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
' in the Gurgaon
Gurgaon (pronunciation: ʊɽɡãːw, officially named Gurugram (pronunciation: ʊɾʊɡɾaːm, is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest of the nationa ...
region on the outskirts of Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
. There was a nude procession of Muslim women in Amritsar
Amritsar (), historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as ''Ambarsar'', is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha r ...
.
Although many influential men such as deputy commissioners and police officials tried to prevent abductions or rescue the victims, many other men abused their positions of authority, such as the Maharaja of Patiala
Patiala () is a city in southeastern Punjab, India, Punjab, northwestern India. It is the fourth largest city in the state and is the administrative capital of Patiala district. Patiala is located around the ''Qila Mubarak, Patiala, Qila Mubarak ...
who was holding a Muslim girl from a reputable family. Known perpetrators included police officials, landed magnates and Muslim League members as well as criminal elements. Armed Pathans in particular were considered the worst offenders, particularly in the Rawalpindi district. a large number of non-Muslim women from Kashmir were abducted and sold in West Punjab and these sold women often ended up as 'slave girls' in factories. By early 1948, Pathans started abducting even Muslim women.
In East Punjab, local police and the Indian military frequently engaged in the abduction and distribution of Muslim women besides the Sikh jathas and refugees from West Punjab. According to Anis Kidwai, the 'better stuff' would be distributed among the police and army while the remaining were distributed among the rest of the attackers. In the villages around Delhi, police and army soldiers participated in the rape of Muslim women.
Estimates of abductions
The exact figures of abducted women are unknown and estimates vary. Leonard Mosley wrote that in total 100,000 girls were abducted on all sides. The Indian government estimated that there were 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women in Pakistan and the Pakistani government estimated that there were 50,000 Muslim women abducted in India. Andrew Major estimates that 40-45,000 women in total were abducted in Punjab during the Partition riots, with approximately twice as many Muslim women as Hindu and Sikh women having been abducted. Masroor estimates that 60,000 Muslim women were abducted while Begum Tassaduq Hussain estimated that 90,000 Muslim women were abducted.
Others estimate that more Hindu and Sikh women were victims of violence as compared to Muslim women, for instance Urvashi Butalia
Urvashi Butalia (born 1952) is an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. She is known for her work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books such as ''The Other Side of Silence: Voices from and the Partition of I ...
, who specializes in Partition violence against women, says that anywhere from 25,000 to 29,000 Hindu and Sikh women were concerned as compared to 12,000 to 15,000 Muslim women, numbers which have been endorsed by Indian scholars Roshni Sharma and Priyanca Mathur Velath as well by historian Anwesha Sengupta.
Recoveries
In September 1947 both the Indian Prime Minister Nehru
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
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* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
and Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan
Liaquat Ali Khan ( ur, ; 1 October 1895 – 16 October 1951), also referred to in Pakistan as ''Quaid-e-Millat'' () or ''Shaheed-e-Millat'' ( ur, lit=Martyr of the Nation, label=none, ), was a Pakistani statesman, lawyer, political theoris ...
vowed not to recognize the forced marriages and both countries ratified this agreement in the Inter-Dominion Conference in December which established the recovery procedure.
The job of compiling claims for abducted women by their relatives fell on the Central Recovery Offices in both countries. The task of locating abducted women was given to local police who would be assisted with the guidance of the abducted women's relatives. Social workers and District Liaison Officers who were appointed by the Liaison Agency of the opposite Punjab government also provided much assistance. Non-Muslim women recovered from Pakistan were housed in District transit camps, the Central camp being in Lahore. A similar camp was established for Muslim women in Jalandhar. The Indian and Pakistani Military Evacuation Organization were established to guard and escort women to their respective countries.
Recoveries eventually slowed down with Nehru admitting in January 1948, "Neither side has really tried hard enough to recover them". Because Hindu and Sikh refugees in India mistakenly thought that the number of abducted non-Muslim women exceeded the number of abducted Muslim women they mounted a public campaign and demanded that Muslim women be held up from recoveries as hostages. Eventually the two countries agreed to not publicize the figures of women repatriated. India and Pakistan's rivalry also slowed the pace of recoveries.
Pakistan claimed that the slow recoveries were because many Hindus and Sikhs refused to take back their women as they considered them 'defiled', an argument which Nehru accepted while accusing Pakistan of being uncooperative. Heavy rains and flooding also slowed the pace of recoveries in West Punjab and in January 1948 Pakistan prohibited Indian officials from entering those districts of Punjab which bordered Kashmir.
Many women also refused to be recovered, fearing being shamed and rejected by their families and communities while some women had adjusted to their new 'families' and hence refused to return. By 1954 both governments agreed that women should not be forcibly repatriated.
Number of recoveries
Between December 1947 and December 1949, 6000 females were recovered from Pakistan and 12,000 from India. Most recoveries were made, in order of succession, from East and West Punjab, Jammu, Kashmir and Patiala. Over the eight-year period 30,000 women had been repatriated by both governments. The number of Muslim women recovered was significantly higher; 20,728 against 9,032 non-Muslim women. Most recoveries were made in the period between 1947 and 1952. although some recoveries were made as late as 1956.
Between 6 December 1947 and 31 March 1952, the number of non-Muslim women recovered from Pakistan was 8,326. 5,616 of them were from Punjab, 459 from NWFP, 10 from Balochistan, 56 from Sind and 592 from Bahawalpur. After 21 January 1949, 1,593 non-Muslim women were recovered from Jammu and Kashmir.
In the same time period the number of Muslim women recovered from India had been 16,545. Of them 11,129 were from Punjab, 4,934 from Patiala and East Punjab Union and after 21 January 1949 the number of Muslim women recovered from Jammu and Kashmir was 482. The number of Muslim women recovered from Delhi was 200.
See also
* The 1947 Partition Archive The 1947 Partition Archive is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit oral history organization in Berkeley, California and a registered trust in Delhi, India, that collects, preserves and shares firsthand accounts of the Partition of India in 1947. The organization ...
* Opposition to the partition of India
Opposition to the partition of India was widespread in British India in the 20th century and it continues to remain a talking point in South Asian politics. Those who opposed it often adhered to the doctrine of composite nationalism. The Hindu, C ...
References
Bibliography
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;Books
* Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf (24 September 2012)
A Concise History of Modern India.
Cambridge University Press. .
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Further reading
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External links
* Whitehead, Andre
{{Rape in India
Rape in India
Partition of India
Rape in Pakistan